How to Eliminate Mold and Bacteria in Your Home

October 22nd, 2014 admin

Whether you suffer from indoor allergens and asthma or not, chances are you’re going to find yourself dealing with health issues if your home has elevated levels of mold, bacteria, or both. It’s true that these pollutants are more potentially harmful to those in your home who are elderly, young, or susceptible to respiratory issues already. But mold and bacteria that are allowed to flourish unchecked can affect the health of every inhabitant in your home, including both people and pets, and of course, including you. For this reason, you’ll want to do all you can to eliminate mold and bacteria when you find you have an issue on your hands. Here are a few potential solutions to consider.

Let’s start by saying that both mold and bacteria grow well in warm, moist environments. So if you live in a humid, tropical region, chances are good that you’re already dealing with one or both. But there are ways to cut the heat and humidity in your home. You can most easily do so by controlling your interior climate. You might want to begin by conducting a home energy audit, whereby a professional technician assesses your structure and provides you with an accounting of areas of energy waste in your home. This allows you the opportunity to seal leaks, increase insulation, and make your home more airtight and energy efficient. From there you may need to increase ventilation, and adding dehumidifiers (either portable or a whole-home system) will decrease the moisture that permeates your home interior and contributes to poor air quality.

Still, this might not be enough to eliminate mold and bacteria, although it has the potential to reduce these contaminants by a large margin. In terms of mold, you might need to hire a remediation specialist to remove any visible mold. Or if you don’t have visible mold by you can smell that musty odor around the house, you might want to order a home test kit. Ideally, you can get baseline measurements before you actually have a mold problem. From there you can test annually to track mold levels so you know when they’re on the rise. This will help you to determine when you need professional help removing mold.

As for bacteria, your best bet is to keep surfaces in your home spic and span. Antibacterial cleaning solvents can help in this regard, although for serious problems you could even turn to specialized UV lights that are designed to kill germs. This is a bit extreme for the average homeowner, but there are other options to consider. For example, you should almost certainly think about installing an air purification system, either with portable units or a whole-home system that filters air through your existing HVAC. You’ll find that air purifications systems featuring HEPA filters tend to have high MERV ratings, which measure the level of particulates they control.

HEPA filters can trap contaminants as small as about 0.3 microns, which is good news for anyone dealing with mold and/or bacteria. To be honest, you’d have to hermetically seal your home to eradicate mold and bacteria completely. Don’t forget, mold is everywhere, and it’s not all bad. And of course, we rely on good bacteria to properly digest food and perform other bodily functions. So you wouldn’t want these potential pollutants gone entirely. But you can definitely reduce the number of harmful particulates in the air and on surfaces in your home, and be healthier for your efforts.